Chapter VIII. Of meditation

After the reading follows the Meditation upon the passage, which we have read. And this is sometimes upon subjects which may be represented to our imagination, such as the Life and Passion of our Lord, the Last Judgment, hell, or Paradise.

Other subjects there are which appeal rather to the understanding than to the imagination, such as the consideration of God’s blessings, or His goodness and mercy, or any other of His perfections.

These Meditations are called, the one intellectual, the other imaginative. And both the one and the other we should use in these exercises, in the way which the subject-matter requires. And when the Meditation is of the imaginative kind, we should try to represent to our minds each item of our subject as it really is, or would become, and as though the action were being performed in our presence in the very place in which we are. With such a representation our reflections will be the more vivid, and our feelings the keener. And although the imagining in our hearts that these things are passing is a greater thing than to imagine whole cities and ri kingdoms, the representation of these mysteries will nevertheless be more easily effected. And this will help much to set free the mind, otherwise too closely confined as—like a bee in its hive—it busies itself in building up its honeycomb. For to let our thoughts travel away to Jerusalem in meditating upon those things which were at the time happening in their several localities, might possibly weaken and do.

harm to the brain, and for this reason we should not too closely fasten the imagination upon the. matter of our thoughts lest we should by the very violence of this imagination weaken its capacity.